Non linear regression with nls()

November 18, 2018

  R regression nls
  stats

Kevin Cazelles

   

Table of Contents

Context

Last week, I was discussing about how to use nls() for a specific model with one of my colleague and I ended creating a piece of code to show what I was talking about! Even though there are many posts exploring nls() in more depth that I did (for instance this post on datascienceplus by Lionel Herzog), I thought I could share these lines of command here!

Basically, we were talking about a model where the temperature ($T$) follows a saturation curve starting from 10°C at t=0 (so T(0) = 10) and plateauing at \(T_{\inf}\).

$$T(t) = T_{\inf} - (T_{\inf} - T_0)\exp(-kt)$$

Goal and data

The goal here is to use nls() (Nonlinear Least Squares) to find \(k\) and \(T_{inf}\). For the sack of clarity, I simulate the data, i.e. I use the saturation curve with known parameter values, then I add some noise (here a white noise):

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
library(magrittr)
# Parameters
## known
T0 = 10
## the ones we are looking for
k = 0.2
Tinf = 20

# Simulate data
## time
seqt <- seq(0, 50, .25)
## create a data frame
simdata <- cbind(
  seqt = seqt,
  sim = Tinf - (Tinf- T0) * exp(-k * seqt) + .5 * rnorm(length(seqt))
) %>% as.data.frame
head(simdata)
#R>    seqt       sim
#R>  1 0.00  9.366208
#R>  2 0.25 10.724386
#R>  3 0.50 11.112208
#R>  4 0.75 10.677729
#R>  5 1.00 11.376080
#R>  6 1.25 12.713639

Use nls()

Now I call nls() to fit the data:

1
res <- nls(sim ~ Tinf - (Tinf - 10)*exp(-k*seqt), simdata, list(Tinf = 1, k = .1))

All the information needed are stored in res and display via the print method:

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
res
#R>  Nonlinear regression model
#R>    model: sim ~ Tinf - (Tinf - 10) * exp(-k * seqt)
#R>     data: simdata
#R>     Tinf       k 
#R>  20.0033  0.1951 
#R>   residual sum-of-squares: 53.84
#R>  
#R>  Number of iterations to convergence: 8 
#R>  Achieved convergence tolerance: 1.312e-06

Let’s draw a quick plot:

1
2
3
4
5
## get the coefficients values
cr <- coef(res)
fitC <- function(x) cr[1] - (cr[1] - 10)*exp(-cr[2]*x)
plot(simdata[,1], simdata[,2], xlab = "Time (min)", ylab = "Temperature (°C)")
curve(fitC, 0, 50, add = TRUE, col = "#2f85a4", lwd = 3)

That’s all folks!

Display information relative to the R session used to render this post.
 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
sessionInfo()
#R>  R version 4.3.3 (2024-02-29)
#R>  Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
#R>  Running under: Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
#R>  
#R>  Matrix products: default
#R>  BLAS:   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openblas-pthread/libblas.so.3 
#R>  LAPACK: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openblas-pthread/libopenblasp-r0.3.20.so;  LAPACK version 3.10.0
#R>  
#R>  locale:
#R>   [1] LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C           LC_TIME=C.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=C.UTF-8    
#R>   [5] LC_MONETARY=C.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=C.UTF-8    LC_PAPER=C.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C             
#R>   [9] LC_ADDRESS=C           LC_TELEPHONE=C         LC_MEASUREMENT=C.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C   
#R>  
#R>  time zone: UTC
#R>  tzcode source: system (glibc)
#R>  
#R>  attached base packages:
#R>  [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     
#R>  
#R>  other attached packages:
#R>  [1] magrittr_2.0.3    inSilecoRef_0.1.1
#R>  
#R>  loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
#R>   [1] sass_0.4.9        utf8_1.2.4        generics_0.1.3    xml2_1.3.6        blogdown_1.19    
#R>   [6] stringi_1.8.3     httpcode_0.3.0    digest_0.6.35     evaluate_0.23     bookdown_0.38    
#R>  [11] fastmap_1.1.1     plyr_1.8.9        jsonlite_1.8.8    backports_1.4.1   crul_1.4.2       
#R>  [16] promises_1.3.0    fansi_1.0.6       jquerylib_0.1.4   bibtex_0.5.1      cli_3.6.2        
#R>  [21] shiny_1.8.1.1     rlang_1.1.3       cachem_1.0.8      yaml_2.3.8        tools_4.3.3      
#R>  [26] dplyr_1.1.4       httpuv_1.6.15     DT_0.33           rcrossref_1.2.0   curl_5.2.1       
#R>  [31] vctrs_0.6.5       R6_2.5.1          mime_0.12         lifecycle_1.0.4   stringr_1.5.1    
#R>  [36] fs_1.6.3          htmlwidgets_1.6.4 miniUI_0.1.1.1    pkgconfig_2.0.3   bslib_0.7.0      
#R>  [41] pillar_1.9.0      later_1.3.2       glue_1.7.0        Rcpp_1.0.12       highr_0.10       
#R>  [46] xfun_0.43         tibble_3.2.1      tidyselect_1.2.1  knitr_1.46        xtable_1.8-4     
#R>  [51] htmltools_0.5.8.1 rmarkdown_2.26    compiler_4.3.3